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Fall 2023 GRASP on Robotics: Marc Miskin, University of Pennsylvania, “Tiny Robots”
December 8, 2023 at 10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Wu and Chen and virtual attendance on Zoom.
ABSTRACT
Nature routinely makes smart, complex, yet microscopically tiny machines. But how can humans do it? And can we do it in a way that is easy to design and understand? This talk is about building microscopic robots, those too small to see with the naked eye. By co-opting semiconductor technology, I’ll show how to build fully autonomous, programmable micro-robots. These machines pack memory, microprocessors, communication systems, sensors, actuators, and on-board power into a single package too small to see by eye. I’ll show several types of tiny robots including quadrupeds, hexapods and even some that use solid-state electrokinetic propulsion mechanisms to swim. Finally, I’ll discuss early applications, including a project to regrow damaged nerves by using robots to literally pull them where they need to go.
Marc Miskin
University of Pennsylvania
Marc Miskin is an Assistant professor of Electrical and Systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a BSc. in Physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and PhD. in Physics from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the faculty at U. Penn, he was a Kavli Postdoctoral Fellow for Nanoscale Science at Cornell University. Currently, he is interested in the design and fabrication of microscopic robots. His work has won awards from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Army Research Office, a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Packard fellowship and been featured in several media outlets, including the New York Times, the MIT Tech Review’s 35 under 35 list, CNN, the BBC, and NPR. He lives in Media, Pennsylvania with his wife and two sons.